Alternity by JamieTheD

Introduction

Making Folks (Races/Chargen Part 1)

I say Apocalypse... but then, I love me line finishers...

The Other Half of the Equation (Chargen Part 2)

Wait, I Roll What? (Rules)

Can't sleep, so have a big honkin' update!

Alternity: Wait, I Roll What? (Rules)


The images, you may have worked out, are sorted by "Rule of Cool", as opposed to relevance.

I mentioned before that Alternity has an odd way of doing things. And a surprising amount of people have trouble with it, despite the fact it's relatively simple. So let's start by repeating how skills are calculated.

Essentially, you have two types of skills: Broad Skills, which allow you to do anything that doesn't need specialist training in a certain area (like Computer Use, or Unarmed Combat), and what I call Proper Skills, which actually have levels, unlike a Broad Skill, which you pay for once, and never upgrade. So why buy Proper Skills? For two reasons. The first is that, as I just said, you can never upgrade the skill-score of a Broad Skill. It will forever be “Your Stat/Half Your Stat/A Quarter of Your Stat”. Secondly, it gets a +d4 penalty to your die roll, unlike Proper Skills. So, as an example, with a CON of 12, you could have a Stamina Broad Skill of 12/6/3 (+d4), and, picking a sensible number out of the air, a Stamina - Endurance (2) Specialty of 14/7/3. The three numbers are for Ordinary, Good, and Amazing success levels, and you want to lowball. Simple.

“But Jamie, what is all this talk of plus and minus various dice?”


The Most Important Diagram In The Book.

Well... let's use an example skill. Let's say Ranged Combat – Rifles, at a level of 12/6/3 (a perfectly average skill level). Now, if the person who has this skill is shooting a rifle under standard conditions at medium range, it's a pretty simple roll of 1d20, and they want to roll as low as possible (because Good and Amazing successes lead to better things happening, for obvious reasons). However, the GM might turn around and say “Well, overall, that's a 2 step penalty”. What does that mean?

It means that they roll a second die (in this case, a d6), and add it to the roll. Bonuses go from -1 (-d4) to -5 (-d20, aka “Nobody's ever giving you this bonus” or “Oh God, don't bother rolling, you win!”). On the other hand, penalties go from +1 (+d4) to +7 (+2d20, aka “I asked you five times whether you really wanted to do this!”... also rarely given, for obvious reasons.). So, for this average rifle skill, this ranges from nigh 100% chance of success, to 60% for +0 steps, to perhaps less than an 8% chance at the very top end of the penalties. However, there is a flat 1/20 chance apiece for either a critical success or a critical failure, regardless of the total value of the dice. A natural 1 on the d20 always succeeds, while a natural 20 always fails. Of course, if you don't like criticals, you can always leave them out, I find. Assisting characters is basically a roll to see how many steps up or down you shuffle the player doing the thing he's rolling for, doing two things at once is a straight +2 step penalty on the main action, and a +4 step penalty (+d12) on the secondary action, and, obviously, both actions must be physically related (IE – things you can actually do at the same time).

Simple, right? So now, let's talk about initiative and damage. We mentioned how Action Checks work before (a failure isn't a failure, it's the fourth phase of Initiative, actions are simultaneous in a phase, and it's just like rolling a skill), but what we didn't mention is postponing actions and more than one action in a round. If you have more than one action a round, you actually have the chance to lose actions in a round, because there are only four phases. Your average character has 1, maybe 2 actions a round... so if a 2 action character got a Good Action Check, they act on the Good phase, and can then act in either the Ordinary or Marginal phase. But if they rolled a Marginal initiative, they don't get a second action. Obviously, if you got a good roll on your Action Check, you can delay your first action too... but what if you only have one action, and want to go first next round?

Well, then, you have to roll at least an Ordinary result, and spend the entire round doing fuck all, and, next round, you'll have an Amazing Initiative. there are situations where this is useful, but... generally, just be happy with the initiative you got.

Damage wise, we've already mentioned what going to 0 on your four health bars does... but we didn't mention how damage and armour works. there are three types of damage: Low Impact (LI, generally melee), High Impact (HI, generally ranged), and Energy (EN, pew-pew or fireball), and they usually have either an “s” (Stun), “w” (Wound) or “m” (Mortal) after the damage (which is usually [dice]+[number], and comes in Ordinary, Good, and Amazing flavours). Armour, unlike weapons, uses all three type ratings (LI/HI/EN), and blocks the damage rolled. If the armour is better quality than the “firepower” of the gun, it can also downgrade damage (turning mortal damage into wound damage, or wound into stun). Once all that's out the way, there's then secondary damage.


I like to call this one "Yes, We Have A Swim Speed!"

Obviously, when a weapon hits you, the damage isn't restricted to making you more dead: It also causes pain. And when somebody's knocked you out, they can keep kicking shit into you until it actually translates into organ damage. So, in order:

- Stun damage bleeds over into wound damage at a rate of 2 stun to 1 wound once you're K.O'd.
- Wound damage bleeds into mortal damage at a rate of 2 to 1 once you're K.O'd (yes, 0 wounds = K.O'd too), and for every 2 wound damage caused, you also take 1 stun (rounded down)
- Mortal damage doesn't bleed into anything, but for every 2 mortal you take, you also take 1 stun and 1 wound (round down again)
- Fatigue damage doesn't bleed into or onto anything... you just knock yourself out if you push yourself too hard for too long.

As far as healing goes, Stun damage disappears at the end of a scene regardless, Wound damage can be partly healed with a successful Resolve – Physical Resolve check (but failure adds a wound) once a week, or can be sorted with medical care, and Mortal damage needs medical care. It doesn't heal naturally, and when you have any Mortal damage, it might get worse if you don't make a Stamina – Endurance check. If you get to 0, obviously, you are dead, game over. These checks happen at the end of a scene, and once every hour thereafter, until the poor dumb bastard gets some medical help. PS – First Aid and normal medical stuff don't help Mortal damage, only the Surgery skill can help. As you might be able to tell, it's a system where death is but a heartbeat away.

In each combat phase, you can move and act, but certain types of movement give you a penalty. So that's alright. Before we finish the chapter (because the usual rules of Impact, Radiation, etc, are here, and are not much different from any other RPG), let's deal with Last Resort Points. Characters with LRPs can use them to upgrade or downgrade a skill check by one degree per point spent. Only Free Agents can spend more than 1 a round, nobody else can use an LRP on that check once it's been declared, and it has to be declared between the die being rolled, and the result being applied. This is, obviously, not a large window. Obviously, they can't make impossible things possible, they don't create critical successes, and they can only turn a crit failure into a normal failure. LRPs can only be replenished by buying them between sessions with skill points. RAW-wise, this isn't a great thing in general, and you could probably ease up on the “after rolling” restriction. But since LRPs are rarely used (or needed), it's no biggie.

Next time, we start making characters!

That's The Way To Do It! (Chargen Part 1)

Fred The Gecko

STR: 7  (+0 steps)  WOUND: oooooooo     MORTAL:  oooo
DEX: 12 (+1 step)   STUN:  oooooooo     FATIGUE: oooo
CON: 8  (+0 step)
INT: 12 (+1 step)   Action Check: 14+/13/6/3 (-d4)
WIL: 10 (+0 step)
PER: 11 (+1step)

SKILLS
STR
Athletics 7/3/1 (+d4)
DEX
Manipulation 12/6/3 (+d4)
Ranged Weapons, Mod. 12/6/3 (+d4)
  Pistol 13/6/3
Vehicle Operation 12/6/3 (+d4)
  Space Vehicle 13/6/3
CON
Stamina 8/4/2 (+d4)
INT
Business 12/6/3 (+d4)
  Small Business 13/6/3
  Illicit Business 13/6/3
Knowledge 12/6/3 (+d4)
Navigation 12/6/3 (+d4)
  Drivespace Astrogation 13/6/3
  System Astrogation 13/6/3
System Operation 12/6/3 (+d4)
  Engineering 13/6/3
Technical 12/6/3 (+d4)
  Juryrig 13/6/3 (-d4)
WIL
Awareness 10/5/2 (+d4)
  Intuition 11/5/2
PER
Interaction 11/5/2 (+d4)
  Bargain 12/6/3
  Charm 12/6/3

WEAPONS
                                          DAMAGE (O/G/A)   TYPE   RANGE
Fisticuffs (Marquis of Queensbury Rules) d4s/d4+1s/d4+2s   LI/O   Personal

ARMOUR
		      LI       HI     EN    Quality
Natural Armour        d4+1     d4    d4-1  Ordinary

Grr'Arg

STR: 16 (+3 steps)   WOUND: oooooooooooooooooooooooo   MORTAL:  oooooooooooo
DEX: 12 (+1 steps)   STUN:  oooooooooooooooooooooooo   FATIGUE: oooooooooooo
CON: 16 (+3 steps)
INT: 4  (-1 steps)   ACTION CHECK: 13+/12/6/3
WIL: 4  (-1 steps)
PRE: 4  (-1 steps)

SKILLS
STR
Athletics 16/8/4 (+d4)
Melee Weapons 16/8/4 (+d4)
  Blades 17/8/4 (-d4)
Unarmed Attack 16/8/4 (+d4)
DEX
Ranged Weapons, Mod. 12/6/3 (+d10)
  Rifles 13/6/3 (+d6)
CON
Stamina 16/8/4 (+d4)
INT
Knowledge 4/2/1 (+d4)
WIL
Awareness 4/2/1 (+d4)
PRE
Perception 4/2/1 (+d4)

WEAPONS
                     DAMAGE           TYPE  RANGE
Punching Shit Hard   d4s/d4+1s/d4+2s  LI/O  Personal
Clawing Faces Off    d4w/d4+2w/d4m    LI/O  Personal

ARMOUR

None!

Skills, Perks, Flaws, and Guff (Chargen Part 2)

While my temporary PC isn't good enough to LP on (boooo!)... I can still F&F with the best of them!

That's right, it's time to go back to...

Alternity: Skills, Perks, Flaws, and Guff (PHB Part 5, Chargen Part 2)



Dissecting the rules like we would greys, awww yeah!

Skills, as noted in previous updates, are pretty easy to understand. But there is one more thing to mention about them: Many skills have bonuses available to buy for getting them to certain ranks (usually in incremements of 3 or 4). For example, at rank 4 of a melee skill, the character gains a new maneuver, and again at ranks 6 and 9. Every 4 ranks, the resistance bonus for strength goes up by 1 when using that particular type of melee weapon. It must also be noted that the deck is heavily stacked toward Intelligence, as the vast majority of skills are either there or in Dexterity. Of course, this is because the Intelligence skills are nearly all very specialised, and only about a third of them have combat applications. So it all balances out.

Perks and Flaws are pretty much normal, and, if anything, are a little sparse for a generic system. They cost or give skill points, and you can take 3 of each. there are, however, a couple of notable ones. Alien Artifact, for example, can be taken as either a perk or a flaw. What this means is that, if it's a perk, it's mostly good with some bad things, and if it's a flaw, it's mostly bad with some good things. Considering some of the bad things that can be chosen or rolled from the GMG section on artifacts, you'd be a chump to take this as a flaw. Then there is Filthy Rich and Dirt Poor.

Tell me folks, how would you like some extra random in your starting funds? Both Filthy Rich and Dirt Poor provide this in spades, as they're a perk that's also a skill, and if you take them, you can either get 10 to 100 times more starting cash (Filthy Rich), or -25 to 90 percent of your funds for Dirt Poor! Wheee!

Actually, pretty much any perk marked as “Conscious” requires a sort of skill roll to use, while flaws are nearly always a step penalty to a skill, resistance modifier, or attribute. But, beyond that, there's really not a lot to say about flaws. So let's move on a chapter!

Chapter 6 (out of 15) is a collection of career templates. You spend a certain amount of skill points, get signature gear into the bargain, and it's generally a useful idea to at least start with one of these. Amusingly, this is also the chapter where the writers openly admit that the money system doesn't allow characters to get most of their starting gear. We'll go into this problem in more detail later, but suffice to say, it is a genuine flaw in this game, and allowing people to just take signature gear for the occupation closest to their concept is probably a very good idea. Especially since it gives some careers a ship and a waiting plot hook in the form of massive bank loans.



"Perks & Flaws needs something... I know, dude freaked about the bullet-hole in his hand! Perfect!"

Finally for this update, we have Chapter 7, which is rather confusingly called “Attributes”. Remember I mentioned Motivation, Morality, and Character Traits? This is where the PHB dumps them. I'm basically going to say that you're better off writing a proper background than relying on these, and then digress into something worth talking about : The artwork.

Alternity brought in some top guns for the artwork, and, while the colour scheme of their books isn't great, and the layout isn't always great either (it took me a while to realise that Intelligence skills were the top half of the second page, instead of noting Engineering as a Willpower based skill... no mattter how amusing and often-accurate that may be...) But one thing that definitely stands out is the artwork. Lemme mention a couple of names...

R K Post (nearly all the art we've seen so far).

Brom (we'll come to his art later).

And Todd Lockwood (The diplomats, among other pics). Of the three, I least prefer Lockwood's work, but as you can see, they contribute a unique style to the game, one which definitely gives it a good feel.

And, on that note, next time, we'll be looking at experience, goods, and why you can never get what you want!

Expanding Your Horizons (PHB Part 8)

Beep Boop! (PHB Part 9)

In answer to the OctaNe question, multi-Role characters were indeed removed. But now... a re-write.

Alternity - Beep Boop! (PHB Part 9)


"Wait... How many children did I have to sell into slavery to get this again?"

Now we come to Computers, which shows the balancing factor behind Tech Ops. Yes, Tech Ops by their very nature have a lot more freedom of skill choice (and skills) than a Combat Spec, but they pay for it with specialised equipment. Never is this more apparent than the section to do with Computers.

For Progress Level 5 (Modern day, and, obviously, when computers are first canonically used), using a computer is relatively simple. None of the bullshit we're about to see, just Hacking rolls for hacking, Software rolls for programming (which, in PL 5, has limited applications, rules wise), Computer Operation for using the Internet to research, and Hardware to fix the damn thing when it inevitably breaks. Once we hit Progress Level 6, however, we have... The Grid.

The Grid is a middle ground between Shadowrun or CP2020's "Hacker's Separate Adventure", and nearly every other system's abstractions, and it feels kludgy . I think one of the reasons I like Alternity so much is that, since I either ran Star*Drive without all this Grid bullshit, and Dark*Matter (which uses PL 5 rules), I never actually had to deal with it. But it's a mess, and there's lots of reasons why. The first is that, RAW, it's going to need Cybernetics (we'll get into Cybernetics next time). The game gives you the option of using "A light version of the Cybernetics rules" if you don't want to cope with Cykosis (the game's nickname for the good old "Six Million Dollar Crazies" we've known since the days of CP2020, possibly before) and Cybernetics in general, but the computer stuff alone is expensive, and, as mentioned, kludgy.

First off, you have to get a computer. Even a shitty Marginal PL6 Dataslate (Basically, a tablet computer) costs $300. This has space for 1, count that, one Program. Let's take a look at the basics for Grid Combat and Hacking, shall we? Oh wait, no, you see, most computers , while existing on the Grid, don't have the capability to access the Grid, especially not the humble DataSlate, which is so unbelievably shit that it requires you to buy 3Ds (basically, holochips) which you then put programs on (2 Program Slots a 3D, 5 for an X-3D, which are $10 and $25 at Marginal... There is no reason I can find to buy above marginal, because it's the Computer's rating that matters for processor speed, not the storage media's. Also, there is no written benefit to buying Ordinary or above. Whoops.)

No, what we'll need, at minimum, hardware wise, a GridCaster ($2000 minimum for a Marginal, 3 Program Slots), and an NIJack ($500, only comes in Ordinary flavour, although PL7 has Subdermal and Wireless at Good quality for $700 and $1000 respectively). Wire comes with it, obviously. So that's between $2500 and $7500 (Marginal to Amazing) for the absolute minimum you need to go play with the big boys on the Grid. Hardware wise. It also doesn't specify if we can use a Mainframe (most powerful), Microcomputer (okay, and less expensive), or Nanocomputer (technically Cyberware, and only allowed with GM permission from PL 7 onwards) to hack the Grid. Great.


A 3D. You will be sick of these quite quickly. But your life will depend on them.

Yes, I stressed Hardware-wise, because we still have our Programs to buy. Only between 3 and 10 (if we're using the Gridcaster as our prime example) Programs can be installed at any one time, depending on quality, and you definitely don't want a Marginal one, because we need more than 3 Programs. Just to start with, we need a ShadowForm. Well, we don't need one, but it's a damn good idea (For reasons that are never adequately explained). Even a basic ShadowForm program takes... 2 slots of the three to run. And pretty much everything is done by Computer-Science - Hacking rolls. If you're good at Hacking, you can improve one of the three stats your ShadowForm has (STR, DEX, CON) by half the skill rating. By the way, those stats are mostly for HP type things and Resistance Modifiers to being attacked. Everything is Hacking. Everything is Hacking. I cannot stress this enough.

So, you've got a Marginal Gridcaster, and have just used 2 of your 3 slots to... Start doing anything. But guess what, to even scan data in the Grid, you need a Program! That takes up your other slot! And most of the programs you can't use, ever , with a Marginal Gridcaster, because you can't run ShadowForm and the other Program at the same time! Also, you've spent... Between $600 and $2400 for... The ability to go on the Grid, and what is basically Foxit Reader. Congratulations, you've hacked the Gibson! So let us just leave this little segment behind with the note that nobody I've ever met who ran Alternity used the Grid. Ever.


Nope, this isn't a GridCaster. Nor is it an AI. Neither are ever pictured in this book.

Let's talk about AIs, instead! AIs turn up around PL 6, and from there, generally only inhabit Mainframes until around PL 9, where they might inhabit smaller stuff (but the most powerful AIs still need the big guns.) They're rated on the same Marginal to Amazing scale everything else is, and, assuming the same kind of system and AI level, will have exactly the same basic stats. No, you don't have one AI slightly smarter or less perceptive than another, and, for obvious reasons, don't have physical stats (they can control robot bodies, but afaik, this doesn't turn up till the sourcebook DataWare... Which we will eventually deal with.) Again, nearly everyone I've met houserules the shit out of this when it applies to their campaigns.

Spaceship computers come in three flavours, all of them barely mentioned: A stock mainframe with a Marginal processor that runs the systems in general, dedicated computers for various Systems that are generally only Ordinary in PL 6 (Good and Amazing are PL 7), and, at PL 7, a dedicated AI Supercomputer that is neither denoted by quality, or price in this section. This is, funnily enough, my favourite part of the entire Computer chapter, because it has little to no faff. Little to no rules , either... But you've already seen what specific rules have gotten us.

Finally, we have Robots. Don't bother with the Robot section in the PHB, it is crap. Robots are the purview of the GMG and DataWare, Citizen, and anyone who says different is obviously not working out that creating stuff is the purview of the GM, and the GM alone!

Next time, we deal with Cybernetics, and why that, too, is often houseruled and optional. FATAL & Friends: Reminding you that systems you love are because you didn't stick to RAW.

Finishing Up (Chargen Part 3)

Man, first thing I see is a RIFTs post. It's like I never left... Anyways, some of you may remember I was writing up Alternity, and mysteriously vanished. That writeup will continue, and we shall finally see the ending of the saga of PlaidXII and TheDextrousWaffle ... May God have mercy on their fictional souls...

(For the previous chargen bits, go here and here )

Alternity: Finishing Up (Chargen Part 3)


TheDextrousWaffle is displeased at how chargen's been going...

IMPORTANT NOTE: The links are Orokos dice-rolls. So now you know what some of the pretty numbers are.

So, last we left off, TheDextrousWaffle was weeping into his coffee, while PlaidXII was already poring through the perks and flaws chapter. Unsurprisingly, Fred The Gecko decides to take Filthy Rich as his sole perk, getting a Filthy Rich score of 12+/11/5/2. To balance this out, he decides to spice the challenge up with Bad Luck. Remember doubling the crit range in D20? This doubles the crit fail range, so if PlaidXII rolls a 19 or 20 on the control die, his character's going to fuck up spectacularly . This applies to the Filthy Rich as well.

TheDextrousWaffle , meanwhile, still has his mind on one thing (Making someone really killy), and buys Reflexes and Tough As Nails as perks (adds +1 step resistance to DEX and STR respectively), balancing it out with... an Alien Artefact and an Ordinary Enemy, leaving him a spare skill point, and the GM rubbing his hands with glee. Alien Artefacts as flaws, naturally, have more bad than good.

First up, it's a carried object (EDIT: As an aside, it's perfectly possible to roll a building as your artefact), in the form of a small tool . Wow, really helpful (We'll assume it's a sonic screwdriver of some kind). Its primary purpose is... Transmutation . Oh dear. Secondary purpose? Thankfully nothing . But that still leaves a transmutation power, and, of course, the drawbacks to the tool. A single d8 roll reveals 2 ordinary powers, 2 M drawbacks, 1 S drawback . Looking ahead reveals that S is for a Slight drawback, while M, obviously, is for Moderate. The GM rolls the powers: a 3 and a 1 ... The artefact can convert 10kg of one element into another (or 1000 cubic meters of gas), and, with use of the Pistol skill, can damage inanimate objects by oxidising/reducing them (IE – burnination) to the tune of d4w/2d4w/3d4w, of Good firepower. PlaidXII grits his teeth, and so does the GM. Unless the drawbacks are really nasty, this isn't really going to be a flaw... Good Firepower will get through a lot of things.

Rolling for all three at once, the GM gets 3, 1, and 8 . That's Blackouts, Damping Field, and Infamous Device. The GM thinks for a minute, and then makes the Infamous Device the slight drawback... after all, burnination isn't exactly worth infamy now, is it? As such, the GM rules the Blackouts are caused by either getting a crit fail on the burnination roll, or using the element conversion power on gas (that just about adds up to the “once per session” a Moderate flaw has...). The damping field is cut and dry, and rather nastier: Thise's a 75% chance, every time it's used, that it will shut all powered devices within 20 meters off for an hour. The GM secretly resolves to only rarely let this happen when TheDextrousWaffle actively plans to use a power for the purpose of triggering that flaw. Of course, lots of things can be within 20m, especially on a small ship (Life Support, Gunnery, and Shields, for example), so this is definitely the flawed artefact it's meant to be. And, while it's not RAW, it's generally accepted that Flaw Artefacts somehow stick to you like the stink on a monkey's finger.

The GM then lets the players pick their motivations, morals, and two character traits, if only to see what their concept is adding up to. Fred The Gecko is apparently all for Helping Others (motivation), is Honourable (moral), and is Flippant, yet Compassionate. Somewhere, a hollywood writer gets a feeling like somebody walked on his script. Grr'Arg , meanwhile, is unsurprisingly, is all about being the best ever at making things very, very dead (Winning is Everything), is Anti-Authority (Alternity's equivalent of Chaotic Stupid), and is Aggressive and Ominous. The hollywood writer suddenly feels like he needs a session with his shrink, because he feels like the buddy movie he's planning has been copied, and he knows that shouldn't matter!

Finally, we come to kit. In TheDextrousWaffle 's case, the GM takes pity, says that the starting money is “walking around money”, and gives him the starting equipment for a soldier: Assault rifle, pack of rations, battle jacket, and survival gear. He gets a whopping 15 dollars . Good thing the GM was nice, eh? PlaidXII eagerly awaits, knowing that he's going to get a spaceship and a cool pistol and...


The all-important "Rich/Poor" table.

...the GM tells him to make his filthy rich roll, and buy kit from that. The spaceship is a given (complete with high interest loans to pay off), but everything else has to be sorted by Filthy Rich. PlaidXII blanches. He rolls 1d20 + 1d4, and... blanches again . He's going to have to cope with only 10x starting funds. Luckily, diplomats have 5d12 for starting wealth, so maybe... but no , he gets quite a few lowballs, and ends up with 230 dollars. To compare this with what he would have got, that's 170 less than for half the remaining signature kit (a 9mm charge pistol, costing $400), and seven hundred and seventy dollars short of the natty armoured trenchcoat he could have got. TheDextrousWaffle sniggers, and PlaidXII mutters that he didn't want the god-damn charge pistol anyway. He buys a .38 police special ($100), 2 “clips” worth of bullets ($30), and a toolkit ($100).

We may end up seeing Fred The Gecko and Grr'Arg again, but next time, we'll be dealing with computers... And the economics thereof.

BIG OLD EDIT

Ahahahaaa... Alternity's layout has actually tampered with this F&F entry. See those pretty numbers for money? Multiply all of them by 10. This isn't noted in the big black text box with "$$$" as a header (and the dice rolls you see above). Nor is it mentioned in the big greenish-grey textbox about "not going hog-wild". It's mentioned in one line under the header in the normal text of... "Spending Money". Therefore, PlaidXII actually comes out smelling like a rose with 2300 dollars , and TheDextrousWaffle ends up having kit and money totalling 3245 SpaceDollars. Not counting the ship, it was still a better deal to have starting money + starting kit, but kit costs are less of an issue than I've been making out. Although not, as we'll see for the Computer post, a non-issue .

The Most Expensive Part of the Book (PHB Part 10)

Kill it with fire? It's almost like you read this section of Alternity, mate! Oh, wait, you're talking about RIFTs. Whups.

Alternity: The Most Expensive Part of the Book (PHB Part 10)


All the toys you can't actually afford. Fuck you too.

NOTE: This is technically hugely out of order, as Cybernetics is Chapter 14 (the final chapter) of the PHB, while Computers are Chapter 10 (Inbetween are Weapons and Armour, Mutations, Psionics, and Starships). You'll understand quite quickly, though.

Cybernetics... in many other systems, they break the game over its knee. In Alternity, they're points and money better spent elsewhere. The cybernetics system is a definite flaw in this game, and I'm fairly certain many people house-rule it. So, you want to be a cybernetic superman, huh? Well, first, you need a nanocomputer installed in your body, before anything else (except cosmetic shit). That'll be 10 skill points and between $2000 and $4000, please!

Oh, you don't want to spend what is, on average, a third of your skillpoints and more money than a starting character sees in a quarter for the basic cybernetic requirement? And you definitely don't want to spend $3000 for a +3 to your strength? Thank you, come again, and don't come back, you min-maxing shit, we're dead serious about cybernetics, we are!!!

Oh, and let's not forget that, after chargen, there's at least two chances for you to not actually get what you paid for. There's a check (varying between a single roll for between adventures or chargen, to an extended check in-adventure) against the Surgery skill... Which can not only fail, but cause Mortal Damage if it crit fails... And, in some cases, there's a CON check to see if the body accepts or rejects the implant. You've lost the money regardless. This, specifically, is when you've installed enough implants (based on their Size) to push you over half your CON score (or CON + 4 with Mechalus, because they love that shit). If that second check fails, as noted, you still lose your money, and you take a Mortal point in damage too. Keep in mind, that's anything up to 5 Mortal Damage in total, and 5 is, coincidentally enough, exactly the amount needed to kill someone with an average (10) CON. If you're genuinely enforcing that cyber-surgery check in chargen, this is the only way I know of to kill characters as they're being generated. And that's one “only” too many.

I freely admit, the Cybernetics section is definitely not great, and I really wouldn't mind if somebody dragged Bill Slaviscek or Richard Baker here to explain exactly why Cybertech is so god-damn expensive. Although, to be fair, for the +3 strength, it's actually a great deal, because that can take you over the stat maximum, and costs less than it would to actually buy improved stats, then improve the stat over play (more to the point, it's not actually possible to raise a stat 3 above the max). But RAW... It's really not worth the hassle.

What I'm basically saying is, cybernetics is mostly terrible unless you spend big, and cyber-hackers have to spend silly points (10 SP!!! A minimum of $2500!!!) just to be able to use their special GridCasters to their full potential (yes, in addition to the other $4000 or so they already spent.) As we'll also see, Telepaths with Datalink blow cyber-hackers at first level out of the water. But that's for later.

Next time, we'll be looking at combat in a little more detail, just to demonstrate how potentially deadly it is... Oh, and looking at (mentioning) some of the fun guns and stuff the game comes with while we're at it.

Wait, That Does WHAT? (PHB Part 11)

Rushing a bit, but that's because I want to get to GMG hilarity at some point this month.

Alternity: Wait, That Does WHAT? (PHB Part 11)

So, before we go into kit, and an example of combat using our old friends and some creeps from elsewhere, let's recap on the basics of combat, armour, and wounds.

- Everything is skills, except initiative, which is action checks, and damage, which is based on how well you did (on the usual OGA scale).
- Weapons and Armour both come in two sets of flavours: Type, and Quality. Type is Low Impact (Melee), High Impact (Bangtubes), or Energy (Lazors), while Quality follows the OGA scale. Armour blocks some damage, only downgrades damage type if it's better than the weapon's Firepower Quality, and Amazing armour is reserved for Vehicles.
- There are essentially four types of damage, but only three are common: Stun, Wound, and Mortal. Stun and Wound are based on CON, Mortal (and the rarely used Fatigue) based on CON/2. Run out of Stun, you're KO'd. Run out of Wounds, you're down. Run out of Mortal, you're dead. Run out of Fatigue, and... Eh. No, really, I so rarely see Fatigue damage overflow that it's not worth mentioning.
- Healing is pretty slow, so please try not to get shot up real bad, mmm'kay?


A brief selection of the higher level melee weapons

So far, so simple. So let's take a brief look at guns and ammo. Everything is sorted, as is usual, by Progress Level. Unlike Computers, the Surgery skill, or technical skills, you don't have to worry about Progress Level compatibility, because weapons aren't generally based on PL unless you're running some very interesting settings. No, weapons in Alternity remain as simple as the basic system.

Melee wise, we start off pretty simple. Not as simple as a rock, but close enough, the humble club. Like all but a few of its Melee brethren, it does Low Impact damage, and is Ordinary (so Good armour will downgrade the damage, and Ordinary armour will only block its LI rating). Looking at the pretty numbers, we see that it's bog standard in accuracy (Less than a third of the melee weapons have any sort of accuracy modifier, and it's never more than -1 step (good) or +1 step (bad). They're also where you'd roughly expect them to be.), has a range of Personal (means its a Melee weapon, doofus. What, did you think you'd have reach?), uses the Bludgeon skill, and does d4+1s/d4w/d4+1w. What this means is, on an Ordinary, it does piddling Stun damage, on a Good, it does piddling Wound damage, and on an Amazing roll, it does still piddling Wound damage. Well, piddling in terms of this game (you'll rarely see anything do less than 1d4-2 (minimum 1) damage.)

As we move up the table, we see other fun stuff, but PL 6-8 is the stuff that makes me grin. Chainsword? Yup, got one of those at PL 6! Light Sword That Isn't Called A Lightsaber? Yup, PL 8, obviously, it does the best damage of the melee weapons. Powerglove (It's so baaaad)? Yup. But two weapons in particular (PL 6 and 7 respectively) give the game its own flavour: The GravMace and the TriStaff. The latter doesn't have a second set of stats about cost, mass, or hiding accuracy, and this is a misprint... But a hilarious one, considering it's meant to specifically be the weapon of a specific group in Star*Drive (the space opera official Alternity setting.) So what do they do? Well, the tri-staff is also sort of a ranged weapon, and is basically a polearm with energy abilities, but the GravMace has a small gravity generator inside it that... Briefly and suddenly makes the tip of the mace much, much heavier as it hits. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but, as you might imagine, it hurts . And, like much of the higher PL stuff, requires Powered Weapon skill to use. Yes, they thought of that.

Guns, honestly, don't have a whole lot of major interest, being... Well, guns and lasers and plasma, big fricking woot.


...And this...

...Okay, okay, the heavier weapons are fun, because they include things like everyone's fave, the Railgun, plasma, a lightning gun (PL 7), Quantum Minigun (don't ask) and portable Black-Hole guns (they're called Mass guns, and fire gravity distortions, but basically, they fire mini Black Holes.)

Armour, however, has not only the usual assortment of crap (Hide, Plate, Armoured Trenchcoat, blah blah blah), but has a very interesting method of handling shields (they add +1 to certain categories, ending with the Riot Shield at +1 to all), but Powered Armour (in both “slightly exo” and “This is basically a human-sized tank” flavours), ablative and deflection “harnesses” (Shield-Belts, ala Dune), and our old friend, the StealthSuit all exist, and add some flavour. Of course, there is a tiny worm in the Garden of Eden here, as weapons by PL8 have almost all become at least Good (and, in a couple of cases, Amazing), while Armour remains, by and large, Ordinary, with a few Goods here and there. Remember, this is a system where damage is very bad , and guns that have better Firepower than the armour has Quality just go straight through. Even the best armour items only decrease the chance to get hit, as opposed to block damage. Don't get shot at high PL's, folks... Speaking of which, let's return to TheDextrousWaffle shall we?

In this brief example, we shan't worry overmuch about Action Check (the game's initiative), and simply have Grr'Arg try to attack his very own Klick (a bug alien that we'll be dealing with in more detail when we get to Star*Drive, but, for now, just think of them as “Intelligent, malicious Ticks with special lasers”), and the Klick, in return, will try to shoot them in the face.


A Klick. Looks like a dumb bug. Isn't.

TheDextrousWaffle is going to use his action to melee a dude with his awesome claws, because... Awesome claws! Let's just remind ourselves of those, shall we?

Clawing Faces Off    d4w/d4+2w/d4m    LI/O  Personal

Brotherhood of Racist Assholes (PHB Part 12)

Playing Chicken (PHB Part 13)

Seriously, I can't make this shit up...

The last art example from the PHB... The very definition of

The Other Problem With Alternity (GMG Part 1)

Yup... That'll give me R4 protection, alright...